Pete McGrath urges Aghagallon to flip the script ahead of Antrim quarter-final clash with Cargin 

Aghagallon face defending champions Cargin in the last eight after a shock result elsewhere kept them in the Antrim SFC

Pete McGrath knows his Aghagallon side got out of jail last weekend and has urged his team to make the most of their second chance in the Antrim SFC.

St Mary’s suffered a 10-point loss at the hands of St Brigid’s in their final Group Two clash in Glenavy on Saturday.

The south Belfast men won the toss and played with a strong wind at their backs and were 1-17 to 1-1 ahead at the break.

Aghagallon turned in a vastly improved second half display and, as word filtered through of an unlikely win for St Paul’s over Ahoghill, they finished with two late goals to finish with a more respectable tally of 3-9.

“Looking at that game in total isolation today, I think winning the toss was a big thing,” reflected McGrath.

“St Brigid’s won the toss, played with the breeze and started off with a lot of pace, a lot of intensity, a lot of accuracy in their shooting and built up a very healthy lead even halfway through the first half.

“We stabilised, we had a couple of attacks that got turned over, a couple of hasty shots and then the penalty gave us a bit of a leg up.

“But they quickly responded with a two-pointer and then I think a goal. So coming in at half-time substantially behind on the scoreboard, I thought in the second half we played a lot better.

“OK, the game was never going to be retrieved probably, but at least in the second half the standard of our play improved quite a lot.

“A lot of the basic fundamentals that were going wrong in the first half were to an extent eradicated in the second half and the second half performance generally I was pleased with. But we put that to bed.”

Speaking after the game, Aghagallon only knew that their quarter-final opponents would be Cargin or Dunloy.

The defending champions defeated Dunloy in Portglenone on Sunday to top Group One and they’ll take on Aghagallon in what will be a repeat of the thrilling 2022 decider which went to extra-time in Corrigan Park.

However, the former Down All-Ireland winning boss stressed that Aghagallon must improve if they are to reach the last four of the Antrim Championship.

“We now have a quarter-final to come – that’s fine,” said McGrath.

“We are just very fortunate to have the opportunity to go forward in the Championship and to show ourselves and show the club generally and show people in the county at large that we are a lot better than the scoreline of today’s game suggests.

“And that has to be the objective. We are a lot better than our performance in the first half would indicate. St Brigid’s did play very well. I’m not taking anything away from them. But we just couldn’t get up to the energy or the intensity of the game.

“Thankfully we did in the second half and we’ll be looking at the second half and what we did well to try and carry that forward into our next game as well as taking a look at the failing in the first half which allowed them to get that gallop and get away from us.”

McGrath reiterated the point that his his team now have the chance to write a different ending to their Championship script than the one which loomed over them on Saturday evening in Glenavy.

“I said to the players that if you take a pretty substantial beating in the Championship and if that’s your last game, then you have to live with that all throughout the autumn and winter,” said McGrath.

“We’ve got an opportunity in the fortnight’s time and in the next fortnight they get a lot of good work done.

“And then in the game to show what our true colours are and what our true worth is. And if we do that, I think we’ll be in with a fighting chance irrespective of who the opponent is.”